Fleet Street bids farewell to last two ‘hacks’

LONDON: Three decades after media mogul Rupert Murdoch instigated its demise as the centuries-old home of Britain’s newspaper industry, Fleet Street bade farewell to its last two journalists.

Known as the “Street of Shame”, Fleet Street once housed thousands of reporters, editors and printers working for the country’s biggest national papers as well as international and provincial publications.

While the British press is still collectively known as “Fleet Street”, there are no longer any working journalists there after the Scottish-based Sunday Post newspaper closed its London operation yesterday.

“It’s a far sadder day for journalism than it is for me personally,” said Darryl Smith, 43, one of the street’s last two “hacks” along with Gavin Sherriff. “Journalism is no more in Fleet Street.”

The street became synonymous with publishing from 1500 when Wynkyn de Worde established a printing press. The first daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, launched in 1702.

In the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, the street was ideally located for journalists, being in walking dis- tance of the city’s financial district, the Royal Courts of Justice and politicians in Westminster.

“Anyone interested in journalism and mass newspapers realises that Fleet Street is the heart of it all,” said Murdoch when he bought the News of the World tabloid in 1969.

However, he was at the heart of its decline when in 1986 he moved his newspaper stable, which by then also included the Times and Sunday Times broadsheets and the Sun tabloid, to a new purpose-built operation in east London, where new technology replaced the hot metal printing presses.

Within three years, all other national newspapers had followed, anxious to cut costs in an industry now decimated by the growth of the internet. Journalists have long departed the old Reuters headquarters at number 85, now the site of a smart restaurant.

Nowadays the street that once echoed to the sounds of clattering typewriters is the haunt of bankers and accountants; the Art Deco building that once housed the Daily Express is now home to Goldman Sachs. – Reuters

PICTURE: REUTERS Journalists Darryl Smith and Gavin Sherriff in The Sunday Post building in Fleet Street in London.